


your stitches are all out, but your scars are healing wrong

by caryophyllaceae (xphantomhive)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Child Abuse, DUN DUN, Implied Rape/Non-con, M U R D E R, M/M, Post-Scratch, it's a spur of the moment thing, it's not openly the condesce but it's heavily implied, maybe it was, perhaps there is death, so honestly i just wrote this really quick??? idk, this is my fave, who knows for true
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 21:32:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9403712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphantomhive/pseuds/caryophyllaceae
Summary: You cannot remember, but you miss; God, do you miss.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know why i wrote this
> 
> anyway, the title is from the song "one more time with feeling" which i listened to on loop while i wrote this

You are forgetting something.

You stare at your reflection in your mother’s expensive wooden table that she had imported from France that she probably blew your college fund on, tapping your fork against the table to the rhythm of a song you’ve heard before, but not really. She’s working late. Code for sleeping with someone, probably the boss. “I need a promotion,” she always says, grinning her shark-toothed grin that sends shivers up your spine. “Don’t you think? I’ve got a son, want to see a picture of him? Oh, he’s such a lovely boy. I love him so much,” but you know she doesn’t.

There is something you’re forgetting. You don’t know what. Maybe it has something to do with the dreams you have. The ones where you die, where you have blood on your hands, a hole in your chest, an aching stomach, three dead friends who you know, but really don’t, not anymore. You see mirror-shades and black lips and green eyes, but you don’t know who you’re looking at, don’t know names or faces, but you _miss._ God, how you miss them.

The front door slams open and you jump out of your daze, dropping your fork on the floor. You shut your eyes and breathe in. The bruise underneath your eye is still healing and the burn on your arm is infected, and you’re surprised your mom—no, mother—hasn’t noticed that you figured out her credit card number and used some of her money to get antibiotics.

“Jonathan!” She calls, voice like nails on a chalkboard. You wince. “Where are you? You know, good boys greet their mother at the door.”

Your mother is terrifying. She has sharp hazel eyes and long brown hair that she has a maid braid for three hours in the morning. “Sorry, mother,” you call back, sliding your chair back. You straighten your outfit though it isn’t crumpled at all, and then you step into the living room. Your mother smiles. It’s fake. “How are you?”

“Incredible, actually,” she replies. “And you?”

You say nothing.

“Never mind, I’m bored. Have you finished your homework?”

“Yes, mother.” You haven’t. You never do homework. You’re failing all of your classes and you skip school almost every day. The answers about your absence are piling up on the machine, but she never listens to them, only browses through and shrugs them off, thinks that it’s just the school calling to tell her how good you’re doing. They aren’t.

She’s still grinning. You wonder if her face ever starts to hurt. “And you’ve eaten, I assume. Doesn’t that mean it’s time for bed?”

“Yes, mother,” but it is not. You’ll take a shower, go into your bedroom, lock the door, and sneak out through your window. She never comes to check on you, anyway. You’re just happy she isn’t angry about anything tonight. If she were, you’d certainly take the fall for whoever it was that made her angry. You’d get the slap on the face, the cigarette burn on your arm, the hand stuffed down your pants no matter how much you struggle, deny. She just doesn’t care. The fact that you’re her son doesn’t phase her in the slightest.

She kisses your head. Your skin crawls. You turn on your heel and take the spiral staircase upstairs, pulling your phone out when you make it to the top and telling your boyfriend to meet you at the playground two blocks away from your house, three from his. You start stripping yourself in the hallway before you step into the bathroom and close the door behind yourself.

You are forgetting something.

 

* * *

 

Your boyfriend, in short, is a deadbeat. He’s two years older than you and he has a weed dealer on speed-dial, and you think you’re dating him because you know it would make your mom angry. His name is Gamzee Makara. He’s taller than you, but so is everybody—your best friend, Roxy Lalonde, loves to say that the puberty train missed you. You can’t help but agree. Being four-nine and sixteen years old isn’t exactly the most pleasant thing you could imagine.

“Hey, babe,” Gamzee says, giving you a kiss that goes on for much longer than it should. He’s got his brother with him, who has his girlfriend with him, who has her sister with her. Her sister is two years younger than you. There’s no way she should be here. You don’t comment on that. “How’s your mom?”

You pull a face. “Horrible, like always. What, do you think she had an epiphany within the last week?”

Gamzee shrugs. “People change?” He offers, and you snort a laugh, informing him that your mother is not the kind of person to change. He laughs fondly in return, then grabs your hand. His brother, Kurloz, gives a short chuckle. His girlfriend Meulin stays silent. Her sister Nepeta shakes, whether in fear or from the cold, you aren’t sure. Gamzee starts walking abruptly, tugging you along with him. You laugh and ask where he’s taking you, and he tells you, “On a date. Sorry we got stragglers.”

His hand is warm in yours, but it doesn’t feel right. You don’t know why, but it might be—

_his eyes are red like fire and he kisses you like it’s the last time he ever will, and then the sky falls apart and you are dying with his hand in yours, and it hurts, and you wish that you would wake up with him, but you do not._

You jolt suddenly. “Woah, babe, y’alright?”

You gulp. Nod. Clench your free hand into a fist. The color red is all you can see for a minute, the color of someone’s eyes, the color of their text, and you do not remember them anymore. The sky was blue and then it was black and then it fell to pieces at your feet, and his hand was warm in yours and then he was gone, like he had never even existed in the first place. “Yeah, just kinda cold. Where the hell are we going?”

“The bowling alley,” you hate bowling. “I know you hate bowling, but I’m fuckin’ starving and the food there is pretty much the shit.”

You like the food at the bowling alley, too, so you don’t argue. All you’re allowed to eat at home is tofu and salads. Your mom says she doesn’t want you getting fat, because that would be bad for her reputation. You eat whatever you want behind her back. You have three bags of _Doritos_ stuffed behind a pile of clothes in your closet, not like she’d look in there anyway, and even if a maid or butler saw it they wouldn’t say a thing. They hate your mom, too.

The bowling alley is warm. You eat a pretzel and hold Gamzee’s hand. Meulin drones on about her cat. Nepeta stares at the sandwich in front of her and sighs. Kurloz says nothing, only stares the creepy way he always does. You think you might be remembering.

 

* * *

 

His name was Strider. You don’t know if it was his first or last name, but you know it was Strider. When you think of him you think of the color red, of the gears in a clock turning, of soft kisses and touches and shades that you got him that he’d never take off for anyone. You loved him. You like Gamzee, but you certainly don’t love him. It’s just nice to have someone. You loved this Strider, this mystery boy who wrote awful raps and drew terrible comics even though he could draw beautifully.

You are snapped out of your daze by a slap across the face. It isn’t the best way to be snapped out of a daze. “Were you even listening to me, boy?” Your mother asks, tapping her foot against the ground impatiently. You were not. She was saying something about new clothes, makeup, baking, money. Probably. Those are generally her go-to subjects, when she’s with you. “Do I need to teach you a lesson, or are you gonna listen to me?”

“I’m going to run away when I’m eighteen,” you want to say, glare harshly and pull yourself up to your unimpressive height of four-nine which can’t even compete with her six-one. “And you won’t ever see me again. Not like you’d care.”

Instead, you say, “I’ll listen, mother. I’m very sorry.”

“You ‘oughta be,” and then she continues with what she’d been talking about, which, for the record, was baking. The spot where she hit you is burning. You know there’ll be a mark there tomorrow, and you’ll have to make up a flimsy excuse about how you fell, or something equally as dumb. And everyone will fall for it, like they always do. You’ve learned not to care.

You remember. Kind of.

 

* * *

 

You search the surname Strider on every search engine under the sun until you find something reputable. Dave Strider, famous movie director, the man who directed that movie you and Gamzee went to see, Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. You thought it was downright stupid. Gamzee laughed at it. He thought it was hilarious. You think he may have been stoned when you went to see it; maybe that’s the only way to find it funny. Maybe you should get high and watch it again.

Dave Strider sparks something in you. He reminds you of a life you once had. A life where you were happier, where you had friends and a parent who cared and good food to eat and you remember that it was all stripped away from you in a second. You search and search and search until you find his address. You aren’t very good at hacking, but Gamzee has a friend, Sollux, who helps you out on the task. Once you have the address scribbled down on a post-it note, you pull on a sweater and stuff it into the pocket.

Mom is at work. Or out shopping. Or fucking someone. It could be any of those options, but she left that morning and told you not to wake up. You leave through the front door and no one stops you. There is snow on the ground and you slide all over the place, and by the time you make it to Dave Strider’s house your fingertips are numb and your nose is freezing. You knock on the door more times than necessary. Dave Strider opens the door, and you fall to pieces at his feet.

“Woah there, kid,” he chokes out. “I don’t even know you and you’re cryin’ all over my shoes. Can you stand back up?”

You stand back up. It’s very hard. You look Dave Strider in the face and his breath catches in his throat. You’re still crying. “John,” he breathes and you break down again, but this time he catches you, and you are sobbing into his chest and you remember what you could not.

 

* * *

 

On your seventeenth birthday, your mother murders you. She says it was an accident and starts to fake-cry whenever someone asks about it, but you know better than that. You have a lengthy list of chores that day, the final one being to climb up to the roof and clear the gutters. She knocks the ladder over. Your neck breaks as soon as you hit the ground, and the coroner looks at you and says, “At least it wasn’t painful.”

Dave Strider visits your grave daily. He always has flowers. He sits at your tombstone for hours at a time and tells you everything, about the time before the sky fell, about how he loved you and how you controlled the wind and how he controlled time and how you had two best friends who were light and space, and sometimes he cries, but not always. A woman comes to collect him sometimes, and you know her. She has short blonde hair and violet eyes and she cries the first time she reads your grave, and you remember her, too.

One day, you wake up in a bed on top of slimer sheets with a cake on your bedside and a mile of red messages on your screen, and you cry.

**Author's Note:**

> unrelated note: oh my GOd eleanor from the good place fckin said she might be interested in tahani romantically it's SUCH A GOOD DAY
> 
> anyway no one was supposed to die, but??? i'm me, so it just kinda happened


End file.
